Fox Host MacCallum, Tony Perkins Rail Against LGBT Tolerance Lesson

May 26, 2011 4:49 pm ET by Carlos Maza

Fox
News is once
again jumping at the opportunity to fear-monger about gay indoctrination in
schools this week, spotlighting a gender diversity lesson at a California
elementary school that features transgender clownfish and single-sex geckos.

During
the May 26 edition of Fox News’ America’s Newsroom, Fox host Martha
MacCallum invited Edward Dragan, school safety expert and education management
consultant, and Tony Perkins, president of the anti-gay hate group the Family Research Council (FRC) to discuss the
lesson:

Not
surprisingly, Perkins resorts almost immediately to accusing the school of
trying to “indoctrinate” children “into homosexuality”:

PERKINS: As a parent of five children, I agree with Edward,
that the stated purpose here to deal with the issue of bullying. Our children
should be able to go into a safe environment. They should be safe from
bullying, and they should also be safe from indoctrination into
homosexuality. We’re talking about kids that are graduating from wearing
Garanimals to having their sexuality compared to animals.

As
ridiculous as it is, Perkins’ assertion that kids can be taught to be
gay or transgender by learning about homosexuality in the classroom is actually
prettystandard
for anti-gay groups when it comes to discussing LGBT tolerance in public
schools.

Perkins’
claim that he’s also interested in stopping anti-LGBT bullying, however, is a
complete joke. Under the guise of protecting “religious freedom,” Perkins and
his organization have fought tooth and nail to undermine any legislation or school curriculum that
attempts to promote tolerance towards LGBT students.

For
people like Perkins, anyprogram that even
attempts to depict homosexuality in a less-than-negative light qualifies as
pro-gay indoctrination.

Perkins
goes on to compare teaching kids about gender diversity in nature to
encouraging kids to avoid monogamy:

PERKINS: I mean, how far are we willing to go with this? When
you consider that only seven percent of the animal kingdom is monogamous in
their sexual relationships, is that what we’re saying our kids should aspire
to? I mean this is really outlandish.

There
are two obvious problems with this comparison.

First,
Perkins is conflating promoting being LGBT with simply informing students that
LGBT people exist and should be treated with respect. Teaching students that
it’s not unnatural for LGBT people to exist is not the equivalent of
encouraging them to try it themselves.

Second,
and more importantly, students are not being bullied for being monogamous--they’re being bullied for being LGBT. There’s good reason
to teach kids to be accepting and tolerant towards people with different sexual
orientations or gender identities. Studies have shown that anti-LGBT bullying
is linked to increased suicide rates, HIV, and STDs
among LGBT youth.

MacCallum
then advances a silly but increasingly popular argument used to prevent kids from
participating in anti-bullying programs in school: there’s just not enough
time to learn about reading, math, AND respecting LGBT people:

MACCALLUM: I just want to interject one other thought to
this. As a parent of three kids, I think I agree with you both. It’s very
important to teach understanding about people and to obviously warn kids
against any kind of bullying that goes on in schools and it does. But when I
look across the country and I see the number of children who are proficient in
reading and math, okay, my question to this school system is “have you taught
these children the things that it’s your job to teach them and why are we spending
two days having this discussion in school? Have you completed all of your other
missions and you’re so freed up that now you have time to discuss clownfish and
geckos? You know, are all the bases covered?”

MacCallum’s
limited understanding of the role of school teachers would undermine
a whole host of anti-bullying programs.

If
teachers shouldn’t waste time teaching students to respect different sexual
orientations and gender identities, then why should they have to spend time promoting
racial tolerance in class? Why should they have to waste time promoting
tolerance towards women or people with disabilities?

Taken
to their logical endpoints, Perkins’ and MacCallum’s view of the “missions”
teachers are assigned to have grave implications
not just for at-risk LGBT youth but for all disempowered or victimized minority
groups.

FYI:
This is the thirdtime in just over a month that Fox News has invited Tony
Perkins to spew his anti-gay hate speech on their television shows and website.
Perkins has called gay activists terrorists,
pushed the myth that gay men are more likely to be pedophiles
than straight men, and promoted ex-gay
therapy.